ON THE APPLICATION OF GEOMETRICAL FORM DESCRIPTION TECHNIQUES TO AUTOMATIC KEY-SECTION RECOGNITION

Automatic key-section recognition is approached by a two-step procedure, the first step of which is a screening based on arc/straight segment classification aimed to associate to each key-section a morphological pattern; the second step measures the string distances by means of non-linear elastic matching among the key-sections possessing the same morphological description. Arc/straight segment classification, a typical geometrical form description problem, is studied by two techniques, one based on Euclidean geometry notions and the other based on discrete geometry. The results achieved by the second technique appear superior, and the performance of the recognition procedure on key-section databases of practical significance is very satisfactory.